This article offers an overview and discussion of the complex issue of the roles and responsibilities of interpreters in various settings. Inter alia, while acknowledging that conference interpreting and community interpreting tend to differ in the dominant applicable norms about roles, the author argues, with some support from empirical evidence, that even conference interpreters, who tend to work under the so-called conduit norm, do not necessarily follow it blindly, being aware of their role as facilitators of communication between interlocutors who do not necessarily share the same culture.